I only found out she was married when we kissed on a small bench outside her house and her husband came out to smoke a cigarette with his friend.
‘Fuck your black arse!’ he shouted, ‘I will fucking kill you!’
I ran all the way back to the hostel. The following day, Nadia came to the hostel and begged me to sleep with her one final time. The hostel was shocked, thinking I had some sort of special charm with the ladies. The following Saturday I didn’t go to work, as I was worried Nadia’s husband would carry out his threat. Chris went alone but returned half hour later to say the police had cordoned off the nightclub—it turned out the owner had shot and killed his girlfriend. Chris was traumatised.
Around this time I became involved in a relationship with another Russian girl called Lola. We had been dating for a couple of months and I spent most evenings at her house after work. Lola was an only child, she had plans and ambitions to take over the world; we would spend the time weaving our dreams together.
We met when she had visited the hostel as part of a group of three girls, one of who started dating my friend Chris; they eventually left for Krasnodar together. Lola was a school dropout and spent most of her time visiting her friends and, I am sure, smoking weed.
At the time, I was also dating Agatha: she had joined our band, but she could not dance to save her life. Agatha was the first girl who gave me her home telephone number. I would call her in the evening using the telephone in the security office downstairs and we would spend an age talking.
One evening Lola came to the hostel crying; she had been told she was pregnant. She told me she wanted to keep the baby. Jejayeee! I didn’t know what to say or how to advise her. In the end she followed her mother’s advice and had an abortion. Later I moved out of the hostel, after making friends with a Cameroonian called James, and shared a flat with him on the sixth floor of a tall residential block in a nice community area; behind our house you could see the main motorway out of Stavropol. By now my stay in Stavropol had officially expired but I managed to doctor my documents and extended my residency permit; I had effectively issued myself with another six months stay. I got a job working at a petrol company owned by Lukoil; the boss was called Stanislav, which we shortened to ‘Stars’. He was a young man and drove an Audi. We conversed in Russian and English.
Stars showed me pictures of his beautiful wife and his son. After our first shift, he invited me to his house and made one of my favourite dishes, gariatchi hachapuri, which is some sort of meat pie, more meat than pie, and is addictive. At this time I entered into a relationship with a Russian girl called Anna who ran a small bread kiosk near to where I lived. We later lived together and Anna almost became my wife although she would probably kill me now if she saw me—I left her with a broken heart. One day I was with her and the next I had disappeared.
There’s a picture of Anna and I in my sister’s house in Tiko Cameroon. I looked fresh and I sent it to Tiko just so my mum could see that I wasn’t at death’s door. After two months of the house share with James, our friendship broke down. Someone had entered our room and stolen money from our reserves. James blamed me; he thought I had stolen it. This breach of trust was something I could not reconcile with. I eventually moved into a new house in another neighbourhood with Anna.
*
My mother had sent me to Yaoundé to live with my sister Ndinge for a year in 1992. (My sister was never married, like my mother she too had boyfriends who came and went.) My sister’s house was adjacent to a coffin production facility that specialised in coffins for children; they had these coffins on full display, I was terrified. As a result, I spent most of my time at my uncle’s house as he lived just a stone’s throw away. The house was always full of my uncles and nephews and it was here that I learned to play Scrabble and became a local champion. It was also here that I fell in love with Enjema. I might have to pay a Titkoli (a fine imposed by the chief for wrong doing) when this book is published as Enjema and I are technically related—she is the daughter of my grandfather’s brother. Does that count?
It was in Yaoundé that I lost my virginity to a Bayangi (a small tribe in southern Cameroon) prostitute in Obili; giving my virginity to a prostitute cost me one pound.
Chapter 6
By some miracle, we had made it into summer but my relationship with Stars had deteriorated. There was this beautiful girl. She walked gracefully whenever she’d approach us at the petrol station. She was completely out of my league but Stars believed he had a chance and asked me to tell her that he fancied her. I could not bring myself to do it.
One day she invited me to her village. There was a young soldier who used to hang around the garage who agreed to drive us there. After she had visited her parents, we sat by a pond together; with the sound of frogs croaking, it reminded me of back home where the whole village bathed during summer. It was a perfect setting for romance and we shared our first kiss. Unfortunately our young driver explained to Stars what had transpired between the girl and I and I was given the sack. I pleaded with Stars to no avail; I had made an enemy. Fortunately Anna never found out and one day after dinner, she made a marital proposal; she’d bought and engraved two rings with ‘My Love Forever’ and so I became engaged. She was a brilliant cook and all she expected from me was to pay a share of the rent. I was happy and temporarily forgot about my plight, though that plight would soon return as I was desperate for work.
I was soon contacted by Edwin, who still lived at the hostel, who told me some businessmen had arrived from Moscow and were interested in my services as a translator.
On my way to the hostel a green Audi pulled to a stop and Valodia and his wife Lola, beckoned me. This couple had been extremely generous to me during my time at the petrol station—the minimum tip I received from them was twenty roubles.
‘Where are you going?’ asked Valodia.
‘I am going to the hostel,’ I replied.
‘We’re going for a picnic, come with us?’ Before I could ponder, Lola got out of the passenger seat and opened the backdoor. I hesitated at first then thought: ‘A picnic, why not?’ Instead of sitting in the front with her husband, Lola joined me in the back seat. As the car drove off, Lola started caressing my leg. I looked in the side-mirror and the husband made eye contact and gave me a wry smile. Lola then kissed my neck, ear lobe and then my mouth.
I am a village boy, from the foothills of Mount Cameroon, my clansmen are divided across Buea, more importantly I am from the village of Wovilla in Small Soppo. When I was growing up, I never saw Mola Njoh kissing Aunty Frida or my mother kissing another man in public, in fact open displays of affection were frowned upon. Now here I was in a small corner of Russia, in Stavropol, in a layby indulging in sexual intercourse with Lola whilst her husband watched. I was on the brink of ejaculation when the husband leaned over and kissed me on the lips. I knew this was witchcraft and I was being initiated. We were in the layby for a good few hours, only interrupted by some squirrels and the need for Lola to indulge herself in the consumption of strawberries.
Valodia, with his bits dangling in front of me (I had never seen an uncircumcised penis before) said, ‘You know Eric, my wife really likes you. We have another girl, Tania is her name, she’s twenty years old, she forms part of our repertoire.’
I didn’t go to the hostel that evening, instead they dropped me by Anna’s bread shop and I went to visit James. After telling James what had happened, he phoned Edwin and Loretta, who both came to visit us pronto.
Again, I told the story how I had engaged in a three-way sex act with a man and his wife. Edwin and Loretta were in total shock. When I told them the husband had kissed me on the lips, they agreed this was witchcraft. Edwin went to the supermarket and bought some lemon grass and peppermint leaves, they were boiled together and placed in a bowl, and I covered myself with a thick blanket and inhaled the fumes. All this time Edwin, James and Loretta were doing some ancient incantations, inviting the spirits of my ancestors to leave their w
arm graveyards in Wovilla and come to Stavropol. To them, I needed rescue. Obviously, their attempts at inviting the spirit of my ancestors failed as I went with Valodia and Lola on three further occasions.
When I was introduced to the businessmen from Moscow (two Cameroonians and two Nigerians) I was told my task was to translate what they had to say to local businessmen in Stavropol. For this, I would be paid a percentage of what they made on their deal. This was all that was required of me, so I accepted without question. I was happy; I felt blessed and privileged to be able to speak the Russian language, now opportunities were coming my way.
Our day consisted of visiting luxurious shopping malls, bars and cafés. I could not believe what these guys were saying—such an easy job. Finally my prayers had been answered, I could raise enough money to make my way back to Cameroon.
Our group included a fellow Cameroonian called Alphonse, another guy we had simply given the nickname ‘the President’, and two Ibo Nigerians, travelling with Cameroonian passports. The Ibo boys had been brought to Cameroon as young children and had spent all their lives working as ‘boy boys’ (child slaves) for their Oga’s (wealthy businessmen). They had amassed enough money to buy a passage to Europe but, like myself, they too had been caught up in the human trafficking scam. In their hopelessness and despair they became small-time cocaine dealers in Moscow. It was a bad time, however, to enter such a trade in Moscow; as we watched television, we saw raid after raid by armed police breaking into houses containing Africans. We saw people jumping into the Moscow rivers in attempts to escape the long arm of the law. I had heard about drugs but at this stage I was naïve and still never indulged.
Despite the risks, Alphonse’s two men had managed to make a small amount of money and were the main sponsors of this business trip to Stavropol. However, they did not have selling drugs on their mind, their plan to make money involved a rather ingenious scam.
Their chat-up line revolved around the statement, ‘We have a dollar making machine!’ Of course there was no such machine but the very mention of a process that churned out dollars got potential clients interested straightaway.
It wasn’t anything like the internet scams that Cameroonians and Nigerians are famous for, what these guys were proposing was far more simplistic. All you need is a capital of three, one-hundred-dollar bills in order to convince a client how genuine and how easy it is to get rich with such a scheme. The client is asked to provide three one-hundred-dollar bills. To gain the trust of the client, it is suggested that all the transactions take place at the client’s house. It was that simple. The truth is, if these guys had approached me, and I had money, I would have fallen for this scam. I was convinced by how genuine they came across. I fell for it big time. There is a saying that goes, ‘If something sounds too good to be true…’
The Scam
The first step is to dress to impress. This means buying expensive clothing, complete with handkerchief poking out of your top pocket to project the aura of wealth. Then you need to speak gently and slowly, choosing your words carefully; the rest is easy. You tell your victim that for an investment of one thousand dollars, you would offer them two thousand dollars in return. The only capital you need for this scam is three hundred dollars (in three, one-hundred-dollar bills), plain paper cut to the size of a dollar bill, some iodine, a syringe, protective gloves, warm water and detergent.
You start by pouring the iodine onto the blank dollar bill-sized paper. The iodine turns the paper blue. You then ask the client for two clean one-hundred-dollar bills, which you also cover in iodine and place either side of the blank. You then place the bills in a small plastic bag and compress between two heavy books and place in a freezer – what the client doesn’t know is you have switched the package for one containing three genuine bills.
Once all the exchanges are complete, you return three days later and, using warm water and some detergent, wash up your previously packaged dollar bills removing the iodine. The client is left bemused when three genuine bills appear. To amplify his curiosity, you insist on taking him to the money exchange centre and exchanging the dollars to prove that they are authentic. The person working at the exchange centre will check to see whether the bills are forgeries or not. You know the money is legitimate but the client thinks they are forgeries.
As there are still some iodine stains on the money, the person behind the exchange centre looks repeatedly at the bills. They take longer than usual; the client is getting anxious until eventually the money is exchanged.
Of course, when you carry out the main scam the bundle is much bigger and contains blank bill-sized paper previously soaked in iodine and stained blue—you will be miles away before they are washed in warm water and still blank! It’s all about sleight of hand and switching packages. To bewilder the client, you can get small medicine bottles, fill them up with mixed versions of homemade detergent and label them with complex chemical formulas.
Once the client accepts your proposal, everything else becomes administrative. How much are they willing to invest? When can they invest? You must make sure there’s a limited time frame between the demonstration and when the actual deal takes place as some clients have the tendency to ask questions of extended family members, who might put doubts into their minds. As I have said, it is too good to be true… At every stage of the demonstration, the client must be reminded of the expensive nature of the chemicals involved.
Our first client was an Armenian gentleman who ran a small liquor store. He was easily hooked and after a small demonstration in his dacha, he invited us to his house where he said he would invest one thousand dollars. The package is supposed to remain intact for three days in a freezer under a heavy weight to encourage bonding but, in his excitement, the Armenian opened the package on the same night. When he telephoned us to explain what had happened, we told him unfortunately, because air had gotten into the package, there was nothing we could do about the situation. He pleaded for his money back but the guys turned the argument around to suggest we had lost our chemicals so he owed us. We never heard from the Armenian again. For my role as the translator I was given two hundred dollars.
As a translator, I had to testify that the business proposal was genuine—there was no one in Stavropol at the time that could threaten my place as a translator—and they believed my every word.
*
I remember my little dog; I had named it Meki Me Ngalle (Meki, the son of Ngalle). I loved Meki with every part of my being. My mother had paid two thousand CFA Francs for me to secure the dog, all I had to do was to wait until Meki was weaned from his mother but I could not wait that long so when Meki was only three weeks old I brought him home. It took him an age to settle as he kept disappearing, going back to his mother for some milk. This carried on for a while until eventually he got used to me. Meki, like Evenya’a Mboli, followed me around; I had a new friend. He followed me to the farm. When I went to wash my uniform in the streams of Mosre, Meki followed me.
When I came home from school Meki would know and he would come at full speed from the back of Mola Ngombi’s compound and jump all over me. Meki was brown and had permanent marks under his eyes, as if he had been crying—he had the face of a mother leopard whose children had been taken captive by hunters. Meki was a brilliant hunting dog. I remember one afternoon one of my nephews, Augustin, and I took Meki hunting along the streams of Mosre. We came across a perfect hunting spot; deep holes had been freshly dug and we saw fresh rat mole droppings, half chewed palm nuts and freshly collected dried leaves in little bundles—all tell-tale signs we were in rat mole country.
We collected some heavy stones and placed them on top of some of the holes, and then focussed our attention on just one hole. It had an exit and entry that was just elbow length deep. Meki started barking loudly, he paused to place his head deep into this hole and barked even louder. Augustine folded his sleeves to his elbow, bent down and reached deep into the hole.
‘Eric,’ he said with joy on h
is face, ‘I can feel something. It’s soft.’ Normally, in this situation, we would use dried palm leaves, some firewood and matove (palm nut chafes) to start a fire and smoke the rat mole out. I jumped around with excitement; we had Meki and knew there was no hiding place for the rat mole. Regardless of what our mothers cooked, catching an animal in the forest was automatic pepper soup. Augustine placed his hands inside again and poked the animal. My heart was pumping faster and faster, I rolled up my sleeve, bent down on my knees and reached inside the hole, I could feel what Augustine had felt. I poked it, it felt soft. The one thing that saved us was the fact that the animal had turned its head and was facing the direction of Meki, who barked louder—we were touching and playing with one of the most dangerous animals in Cameroon, if not in the whole of the African continent. Even when we heard the hissing noise, we didn’t know what it was, we only got excited, confirming our suspicions that there was an animal in the hole; we poked and poked and the hissing only got Meki even more excited and he barked louder. Suddenly Meki reached deep into the hole and pulled out what I now know was a Bitis Nasicornis or Rhinoceros Viper. That was when it dawned on us, we had been dicing with death; it was only when I was in our housing estate flat in Ely and watching David Attenborough that I learned the noise a snake like that would make when issuing a warning.
I, Eric Ngalle Page 5
